This is a detail from a Berkey & Gay chair, once part of the historic Hahn House.
My challenge was to paint the chair detail in ink only — for Inktober —
and I did, using two of my favorites, Diamine Ancient Copper and De Atramentis Tobacco.
The background is painted in DS Primateks (watercolor).

I’m not completely happy with it but painting with ink is hard!

Sadly, a couple bought the home which others had painstakingly restored, where the Pittock’s dined, deals pertinent to Portland’s future were made, and gutted it,
turning it into IKEA. They removed or painted the wood, removed the fixtures,
removed stairwells. MANY in Portland cried.
It is now the Hahn House from the outside only.
I will never understand it — why not just buy property and build?

They moved the newly conserved historic set into the damp autumn garage,
undermining quite a lot of the painstaking treatment. Shellac needs to cure.
I had to fight with the Oregon Historical Society to take the historic furniture.
I told them how to store it so the shellac cured properly.
I asked them to contact me so we, the conservators, could deliver the
information to the society. They never did… I have no idea how it was stored,
if they followed out instructions, etc. Again, crying….

The furniture was manufactured by Berkey & Gay in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
in the style of the Aesthetics movements and High Renaissance Revival at the
turn of the century. For the post on moving day up the steep hillside
with a cabinet as heavy as a small elephant, click here.
To see the furniture before and after, go here.

I have something similar next door to me. Not historic, but a beautiful older home that was meticulous in every way inside and out. Doctor and his wife bought the house and gutted everything, inside and out. A year later they are still not moved in. The privacy fence goes up around their yard soon. This after both us and their ‘behind the house’ neighbors told them ‘don’t you dare cut any more trees!’ This after a 100+ plus oak was taken down so they could add a bedrooms suite–for the college age kids to stay in when they visit. I cannot even look their way any more. People are idiots, Katie.